REICHSTAG FIRE TRIAL

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 28 September 1933, Page 5

REICHSTAG FIRE TRIAL

EVIDENCE OF CONFESSIONS OFFICIALS GIVE TESTIMONY. SOVIET DEVELOPMENT. EXPULSION OF JOURNALISTS. (United l'reas Association —By Electric relegrapti Copyright..) Received 11.30 a.m to-day. LEIPZIG, Sepc. It . “According to newspapers you spoke freely to visitors yesterday. \Y di »ou similarly answer the Court to-day, the president asked of Van de Luube at the continuation or the Re.chstag fire trial. Van De.r Lubbe mumbled: “As usual.” , „ , . A Swedish criminologist and a Dutch journalist testified that vis.ts to Van der Lubbe showed no sign of mtreatment. A policeman in evidence said that Van Der Lubbe originally freely" confessed to three attempts at incendiarism. „ The trial judge, Herr \ogt, who interrogated Van der Lubbe at the pielira inary inquiry testified that he was a ready if not an habitual lisu\ ' an der Lubbe willingly explained his part in the Reichstag fire and insisted that lie alone was responsible. A Moscow message says that AJ. Litvinoff has announced that the systematic German persecution or Russian Press representatives is the cause of the Soviet’s deportation of German correspondents and recall ot Russian correspondents from Germany. He added: “The Soviet will not submit to offensive treatment of Russian journalists.” . . . . Besides ordering the expulsion of German correspondents the Soviet is recalling to Moscow four Russian torrespondents in Berlin, the representatives of the “Pravda” and the "Izvestia” and two representatives of the Tass News Agency, indicating the Soviet’s intention to take a firmer attitude with regard to incidents involving Soviet citizens. The expulsion of the German journalists has caused a sensation in foreign political circles, where it is regarded as the most serious development in Russo-German relations since the Nazi regime began. The expulsions coincide with a distinctly sharper tone in the Press comments on the Leipzig trial, which is legarded as a faroial frame-up. Those expelled include Herr Wilhelm Baum, the representative of tlie Wolff Agency, wlio is also Press adviser to the German Embassy.